The Great Crusades - The First Spilled Drink of the Evening

Artist: The Great Crusades Title: The First Spilled Drink of the Evening Catalog#: Mud-CD-032 Price: $7.50	Tracks on this CD:
	When the Stars Have Run Out of Souls
	The Great Crusades
	Yellow Skeleton
	The Stranger
	The Search
	Mirror
	How Can You Believe In Me?
	Two Fishermen
	Beautiful Drunk
	Caroline
	Who Put a Gun In My Hand?
	The First Spilled Drink of the Evening

Starting with the facts...

Brian Krumm has played every show as a member of the Great Crusades, back in their starting days in Champaign, now in the relocated homebase of Chicago. Brian Hunt's been involved a good long while, too. The two have a bond, dating back to their days in the Suede Chain, a Champaign based act that would hint at great things before their dissolution in 1995. Christian Moder, who played keyboards in Krumm's earliest bands, dating back to fifth grade, now sits behind the drumkit for the Great Crusades. The circle closing again. Brian Leach, playing keys and adding textural guitars, has his own act, Sugarbuzz.

The Great Crusades debuted on Mud last year, with a record, The First Spilled Drink Of The Evening, that hustled together a variety of influences, some thorny lyrics and expert playing--guitarist Rod van Huis and drummer Mike Rader contributed mightily to the recorded effort.

When those two left the group to pursue other opportunities, Krumm and Hunt decided to press on with the project, and why not? After all, the growth of their talents is obvious to anyone who's followed their progress over the last decade. Whereas the Suede Chain threw everything imaginable into their songcraft, from gently weeping near-country to folk to guitar rave-ups, the Great Crusades seems more centered, though no less imaginative.

There's is a rare focus, one that's drawn comparisons (mostly English) along the lines of Tindersticks, Pulp, Gallon Drunk, PJ Harvey, and, yes, Tom Waits, an influence, clearly, on Krumm's tales of drunken nights and weary days after.

These are sad songs, well-executed live, a single lamp illuminating Krumm, his shirt-and-tied band different these days than a year ago, but still able to register the same emotions. Sadness. Longing. Sometimes, a clenched-fist optimism, though, more often, a bracing anger.

The Great Crusades' songs are stories, played out on stages throughout the midwest. There's is a particularly attractive sound, even as it holds you at arm's length.

Great is not wasted word in their name. It's what they are. May they enjoy the riches they justly deserve.